


Perfectly Aligned Between the Covers

by lustmordred



Category: The Following
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, psychopathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:37:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lustmordred/pseuds/lustmordred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Excerpt: It isn’t jealousy and Paul’s really getting tired of being called a jealous little bitch. He can see where Emma, being Emma, would see it that way and he supposes most people in her position would see it that way, too. He’s not going to sit the girl down and explain to her the difference between jealousy and possessiveness. Possessiveness that comes by right of owning somebody as long as he’s owned Jacob. He did have exclusive rights to Jacob for three years and, after all, how does that saying go? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. They make their own laws, people like him and Emma, but Emma’s still got a few too many ties to the world out there. The law here and now is the law of the jungle. She’s smart, he could explain it to her, but she might cut him again and then… well, then he’d just have to snap her pale, skinny neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perfectly Aligned Between the Covers

**Author's Note:**

> Mostly takes place during episode 4, but possible spoilers for all episodes 1 through 5. Please pay attention to the warnings, they’re not just there for decoration.

It isn’t jealousy and Paul’s really getting tired of being called a jealous little bitch. He can see where Emma, being Emma, would see it that way and he supposes most people in her position would see it that way, too. He’s not going to sit the girl down and explain to her the difference between jealousy and possessiveness. Possessiveness that comes by right of owning somebody as long as he’s owned Jacob. He did have exclusive rights to Jacob for three years and, after all, how does that saying go? Possession is nine-tenths of the law. They make their own laws, people like him and Emma, but Emma’s still got a few too many ties to the world out there. The law here and now is the law of the jungle. She’s smart, he could explain it to her, but she might cut him again and then… well, then he’d just have to snap her pale, skinny neck. 

Showing is so much better than telling, anyway. It really makes a statement and it’s hard to argue with. 

It’s really the ‘little’ part of the ‘jealous little bitch’ statement that pisses him off most. It’s so inaccurate. So _dismissive_. Such an unwise thing for Emma to do when she knows better. Underestimating him is one thing, he’s rather good at being underestimated and it’s never steered him wrong before. But _little_.

Tsk, tsk.

Jacob’s supposed to be in the basement killing Megan, but instead, Paul’s in the basement keeping Megan company. She’s a great listener. 

“Jacob’s not a killer,” Paul tells her apologetically. “I know it, he knows it. Emma’s starting to know it but she’s so… twitterpated. I think he might be the first boy who ever looked twice at her. It’s sweet, don’t you think so?”

Megan moans behind the duct tape over her mouth and sobs. As answers go, it’s not all that suitable to the circumstances, but she does it with such feeling. 

“Well, I do. Problem is, I just can’t let it continue, can I?” Paul says. “Because he’s _mine_.”

Megan mumbles something behind her gag. 

“I’ve thought about that,” Paul says, just as if she’s spoken intelligibly. “I might even try it. I’m not a greedy person. I can share.”

He taps his fingers a little on the thighs of his pants, watching her, and sighs. “I’m going to have to take care of you. I know that. I’ve always known that,” he says. “But I have to give him his chance, don’t you see?”

Megan shakes her head, her puffy eyes leaking with tears. 

“Pretty soon, we’ll send him back down here with a knife to kill you, but he won’t do it. I’m not sure what he’ll do, but he’ll probably hang out down here for a good while to work up his courage. Long enough to decide to take the tape off just to have someone to talk to, even if it’s you and all you do is bleat for mercy. Then if you do it well, I mean if you’re _really_ convincing, you might even get him to let you go. He’s a soft touch, our Jacob, and you really want to live, don’t you?”

Megan stares at him, giving him her full attention now. Tears still leak from her eyes, but they course silently down her dirty cheeks. There is a renewed spark of hope in her expression and Paul can’t help smiling to see it.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll bring you right back, I promise,” he says. “I’ve got a real purpose for you.”

She is a wedge he can drive between Emma and Jacob. It’s already started. He has already fit her into place. Now it’s up to Jacob, but he’s so predictable. He’ll do just what Paul wants him to do.

Megan starts to sob again, then suddenly screams behind her gag and struggles against the ropes binding her. 

Paul just watches her until she stops and sags back again in the chair. He tied her to it himself; she’s not going anywhere on her own. 

Paul crouches down in front of Megan’s knees and looks up into her face. “Do you know why I know he’ll never do what he’s supposed to do with you, hmm?”

Megan just stares at him. 

“Because he’s just like you, Megan,” Paul says. “He’s so… _human_. He wants to be a big bad monster, but he’s really just a little oxpecker. He’s a pilot fish. He’s just like you and so if you cry for him like you’ve been doing for me, he’ll feel so, _so_ guilty. Can you guess why I’m telling you this, Megan?”

Megan shakes her head no. 

Paul steeples his fingers in front of his mouth and smiles at her. “Because I want him to let you go,” Paul tells her. “You’ll never get away, but he has to let you go. And do you know what’s really remarkable about all of this? I mean, _fascinating_?”

Again, Megan shakes her head no. 

“I’ve told you all of this and you’ll still do it. You’ll still beg him to let you go and bargain for your life and so it doesn’t even matter.” Paul stands and pets a hand through her hair. Megan twists her head to get away from the caress, but Paul doesn’t pay any attention. “You’re such a good listener, Megan. I’m so glad I met you.”

He starts for the stairs, but pauses on the second riser. “Maybe he’ll surprise me,” he says. “Maybe he’ll kill you. He really doesn’t have anyone else and he wants so badly to belong. Maybe he will. Wouldn’t that be something?”

He leaves and goes back upstairs. 

Jacob passes him as Paul’s going through the kitchen and he has a knife clutched in one hand. He walks fast with his head down and doesn’t speak to Paul as he goes by him. Paul turns to watch him and hears his feet on the basement stairs. 

Paul smiles to himself and goes to see if Emma’s heard anything from Maggie. There isn’t anything on the internet yet and on the news it’s been saying that they’re looking for her. Same old, same old. He suspects Maggie’s gone off the reservation. She’s a good girl, Maggie Kester, and clever as the day is long, but she really does love Rick. Probably the only thing she’s ever loved in her life is that little pyromaniac idiot. Something’s gone really wrong on their end of things and Paul doesn’t think they’re going to hear from her at all. 

She’s gone off the deep end, as Jacob would probably say. He’s right, too. Emma’s been calling, she’s been searching the message boards. Maggie’s just nowhere. If she’s not dead somewhere with Rick, she’s off doing something she’s not supposed to be doing. It’s all very _not cool_.

Jacob stays down in the basement for a long time. It gets dark and Emma puts the kid to bed while they wait.

They can wait forever, but Paul knows it’s not going to happen. Jacob doesn’t have the stones for it. He’s a victim, not a killer. Paul lived with him for three years and he knows him well, inside and out, but it didn’t take him three years to figure Jacob out. Jacob’s really not that complicated. 

More than anything, Jacob wants to fit in. Jacob wants to be accepted. It’s that eager-to-please facet to his damaged psyche that first opened the door for Paul to crawl inside him. With nobody else watching, with nobody else to please, Jacob gave Paul whatever he wanted. What Paul wanted after about a year of them circling each other, pretending to be gay so Sarah would think they were cute and harmless and trustworthy, was to hear Jacob scream with his hand around his throat while he fucked him. So, when Jacob insists that he’s not really gay, Paul believes him because Jacob probably isn’t. Even though he’s had him moaning and panting beneath him in bed more times than he can count, he doesn’t think Jacob’s gay, either. He also doesn’t think it matters a damn bit. With a little pressure here, a little push there, Jacob will still do whatever he wants. Right now, the only thing stopping him is Emma. Emma’s the only new element and she’s changed everything because she’s watching and Jacob has someone else to please. 

Emma sits down to watch the news after putting Joe’s brat to bed. Paul sits with her, in a chair at an angle from the couch where she’s sitting, and waits. That’s what they’re really doing; playing the waiting game. 

“What’s taking him so long?” Emma says. She makes a frustrated noise in her throat and slumps back on the sofa, staring at the TV.

Paul shrugs. 

On the news, they’re calling them a cult. They’re careful to say that nobody will confirm it, but they’re also calling their behavior ‘cult-like.’ 

They probably are a cult, but Paul’s personally never been much into all of that Edgar Allan Poe shit. He likes Joe, though. He thinks the man’s a genius. He sees what he’s doing, at least some of it. It’s Jim Jones and Charles Manson worthy manipulation. Manipulation so sly and insidious that they’re not supposed to know they’re being manipulated at all. Most of them don’t. Emma doesn’t. Jacob definitely doesn’t. _The Gothic Sea_ was a load of pretentious shit in Paul’s opinion--and in the opinion of, almost literally, everyone else--but Joe was still trying to play the proletarian professor a bit back then. He got a lot better when he stopped all of that. Joe’s brilliant and Paul will follow him and play his part, at least for now. He can use this cult of theirs.

Of course, if he’s ever asked to drink the Kool-Aid, that’ll be his cue to split.

The news hasn’t been covering anything much other than Joe Carroll and his murderous cult since Joe’s escape from prison. Paul can’t remember the last time he saw this much of Brian Williams, for Christ’s sake. He’d much rather be watching cartoons. 

“We haven’t discussed what we’re going to do if Jacob won’t do it,” Emma says. 

Paul looks at her with raised eyebrows and considers this. 

Since Paul told Emma about Jacob’s lie, that he’s not a killer, Emma’s backed up the bitch wagon a lot. Now she’s back to acting like they’re maybe not friends, but companions and associates. She might not believe that Jacob lying about being a killer like them is entirely responsible for Paul’s agitation lately, but she wants to and that has gone a long way toward convincing her. She really is a simple creature. A murderous predator, not a prey beast like Jacob, and Paul can respect that about her, even admire it. Still, she’s probably not going to make it to the end of Joe Carroll’s book. 

“What do you want to do?” Paul asks her. 

Emma likes being in charge. She likes making the important decisions. It makes her feel special. 

Besides, Paul’s flexible where Jacob’s concerned. He likes playing with him, but Jacob’s been making a lot of unreasonable demands on Paul’s _emotions_ since they’ve been at the farmhouse and it’s becoming tiresome. He can go either way. 

Emma doesn’t say anything for a while, just sits there looking distressed. She likes playing with Jacob, too, but it’s different for her. “I don’t know,” she finally says. 

Paul nods. He expected as much. 

On the news, a woman is saying “ _… several people are dead and Carroll’s son, Joey Matthews, has been missing since…_ ”

The screen door on the other side of the kitchen screeches open and bangs closed.

Paul looks up, but it’s Emma who jumps to her feet and goes to investigate.

Paul waits for it… waits. He counts _one, two… three…_

“It’s the girl!” Emma shouts. “She’s getting away!”

She sounds so surprised. 

The screen door slams open again as Emma leaves the house and Paul gets up and runs after her. He lets Emma take the lead because she likes to. He did promise Megan, so he can’t let her go. More to the point, he doesn’t think they’re quite done with her yet, and what kind of message would that send to Jacob if they didn’t go get her and bring her back?

Like a couple of wolves bringing a deer to bay, Paul and Emma trap Megan in the barn. When she tries to run, Emma drives a knife into her belly. Megan’s a fighter, though. She drags Emma down to the ground and Emma’s vicious, but she’s small. As small as Megan, if not smaller. Megan’s desperate. She wants to live. She could get away if it were only Emma she had to get by. 

Paul pounces on her and pushes her down when she tries to get up. He wraps his hand in her long hair and forces her head back as he climbs on top of her. Megan claws at his hands, screams and cries, and that spark of hope from before, it’s gone now. 

Emma’s pissed. Pissed enough to finish the job and kill the little bitch right there in the mud. She manages to get to her feet and stands there panting, her blue eyes blazing, fingers gripping the knife in her hand so tightly that her arm trembles. 

If Emma wants to kill her, Paul won’t stop her. He’ll hold Megan for her if she wants him to. He really doesn’t care if he takes Megan back to the house alive or dead. Either way will still make a hell of a statement. 

“Get her up,” Emma says. “We have to take her back.”

Paul hauls Megan up out of the mud. When she starts screaming and crying again, he grabs her by the throat and squeezes until she chokes and her legs go out from under her. That sobbing, bleating, helpless crying shit is _really_ getting on his last goddamn nerve and it would be the easiest thing in the world to just keep squeezing. Emma almost lets him finish it then and Paul is _so_ tempted. As his fingers sink into Megan’s soft throat and her heart races like the wings of a bird against his palm, he is _very_ tempted. 

“Don’t, Paul,” Emma says. 

He looks up at her and his lips are drawn back from his teeth in a silent snarl. He clenches his fingers a little tighter and Megan’s eyes roll back to whites in her head. 

“We have to give Jacob a chance,” Emma says. 

Paul supposes that’s true. They probably should give Jacob a chance. Even if he did fuck the pooch royally this time. Even if he’ll never be able to do it. He deserves another chance to prove them wrong. 

“He can do it. I know he can,” Emma says. “He wants to be with us. He can do it.”

Does Emma believe it, though? Paul thinks not. He thinks maybe she’s beginning to lose a little of her faith. 

Paul huffs out a soft laugh and picks Megan up. She’s limp now, but her legs are twitching. Reluctantly, Paul lets go of her throat and throws her over his shoulder. He starts toward the house and Emma hurries to catch up. 

“What are you going to do?” she asks. 

“I’m going to take her back to the basement,” Paul says. 

“You can’t kill her. Not yet.”

“I’m not going to kill her, I’m going to tie her up again.”

As he goes to the basement to do that, Emma goes to look for Jacob. She won’t find him. Not yet. Jacob’s off somewhere trying to work up the courage to face them after what he’s done. He’s scared and ashamed right now, like a puppy that’s pissed on the rug. Like a puppy, he has nowhere else to go. He’ll eventually return. 

“He probably thought you wanted to live enough to get away,” Paul says, speaking to the still unconscious Megan. “Magical, wishful thinking. Then he could say you got away on your own and he was out there looking for you. Emma loves him so much, we might have even had to believe it for a while. But that’s not what’s going to happen.”

He ties Megan back up to the chair, this time with the rope around her throat and her waist instead of crossed over her chest. Jacob cut the ropes with the knife he was supposed to kill her with and Paul has to make do. He pulls a new strip of duct tape off and puts it over her mouth. It’s as he’s doing that that she wakes up and starts crying again. 

“Oh, come on now. You can’t be surprised by any of this,” Paul says impatiently. “I did tell you what was going to happen.”

So he won’t hit her or kill her to make her shut up, Paul leaves her. It’s spiteful, but he turns the light off as he goes back upstairs and leaves her screaming behind her gag in the pitch black dark. 

Emma’s stripping her filthy clothes off to get into the shower when Paul walks into the bathroom. He apologizes for walking in on her, but he doesn’t back out of the room and give her privacy, or even avert his eyes as she holds her muddy shirt up in front of her tiny, half naked body.

“She really found the mud, didn’t she?” he says.

Emma stares at him for a beat. It’s one of those things people just don’t say at times like these. Then she laughs and Paul laughs, too. And they’re a little closer to being friends now. They’ve shared Megan and seen one another at their savage best. Emma’s beginning to recognize in Paul another like herself, which Jacob will never be. Which Jacob _can’t_ be. 

Emma looks a little afraid when she says, “We both love him, Paul.”

Paul’s smile slips entirely away. He does not _love_ Jacob. Emma does, he can believe that. She’s still a loving sort, for all that she’s a real homicidal little viper. It’s a three-way symbiotic relationship and, for now, Emma’s still getting something out of it with Jacob, even if it’s just an emotional something that ties her to the world out there. 

“I know that’s hard for you,” Emma says. 

Paul’s not getting much out of it but a lot of aggravation since they came to the farmhouse. Jacob’s weak, he’s just another creature to be hunted like Megan. It’s what first attracted Paul to him, but he doesn’t love him. 

Emma’s not weak. 

“Come on,” Emma says. She comes to him and offers her hands. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

Paul eyes her thoughtfully, considering the possibilities. Considering her and what she’s up to and what he might get out of it. He takes her hand and closes the bathroom door. 

Emma sees the way he’s watching her, but she reads it wrong and laughs. “Don’t freak out. It’s not like we’re going to get it on,” she says. 

Which is a blatant opening for exactly that. Even Paul, who most of the time has little to no interest in such things, knows that when a girl tells you you’re not getting any before you even _try_ to get in her pants, it will take almost no effort at all to get in her pants. It’s probably the adrenalin. The adrenalin and the intimacy that comes from sharing something like Megan. Or something like Jacob. 

He’s a little surprised by how gentle and sweet she is when Emma puts her hand out and cups his face against her palm. This is the same little pixie cunt of a girl who slashed his arm open when he tried to make peace with her not so long ago. He’s surprised again when she lifts up on her tiptoes and kisses him. It’s more than a bit surreal and Paul can see a way to Jacob opening wide before him as he kisses Emma back. 

Emma laughs when she drops back flat on her feet and Paul watches her. Her cute heart-shaped face is streaked with mud. She’s got mud in her short red hair and down her throat. It’s on her clothes and soaked through her bra and panties. She puts her hands on his face and there’s grit on her fingertips and in the stubble of Paul’s beard. They both laugh, kissing again, the grainy taste of soil on the back of their teeth.

Paul pulls his shirt off over his head, then catches Emma around the waist and backs her up to the bathtub. Emma’s turned the water on and with the shower curtain open, water is getting all over the floor. Paul pushes his shoes off with his toes and picks her up enough to lift Emma over the lip of the tub, under the shower spray. He steps in after her and pulls the curtain closed, closing them in alone together with the warm steaming water.

The grit and grime is harder to get out of Paul’s curly hair than Emma’s short, straight bob. Most of the mud sluices off their bodies and down the drain right away. To get it out of his hair, Paul ducks his head under the water to rinse it and shakes his head like a dog when he picks his head up. 

Emma’s still holding her shirt in front of her, now sopping wet and useless, when the bathroom door opens and Jacob calls her name.

Emma and Paul exchange a brief look. There’s a touch of shame in Emma’s expression, but Paul’s merely curious to see what she will do. She pushes the shower curtain aside enough to look out at Jacob. 

“I’m sorry… about…” Jacob trails off, sensing something amiss. 

Emma throws the shower curtain back, revealing Paul standing there in the shower with her. Paul looks at Jacob, and he’s standing there looking ashamed and repentant, just like a puppy. Exactly like a puppy with its tail tucked that expects a spanking for being naughty. His teary eyes still go a little wide when he sees Paul, his mouth hangs open and he looks betrayed and confused. 

Emma puts one hand out toward him, to draw him in, and says, “We’re not giving up on you.”

Jacob is pathetically grateful and relieved. He looks between them and crosses the room to Emma’s outstretched hand. Paul puts an arm around him, too, and they pull him close, welcoming him into the shower with them, holding him between them. It’s a great show of acceptance and, more than anything, that’s what Jacob wants. To have it from both Emma and Paul must be like a dream. He’ll do anything to please them. 

That’s how they end up in bed together, all of them, with Jacob between them. Emma lays stretched out on her side on the bed and watches Paul fuck Jacob on his knees. Paul’s familiar with Jacob’s body and has him shuddering and moaning despite himself as he thrusts into him. He holds Jacob’s hips and urges him to move with him until Jacob rocks, riding him without being coaxed to it. Jacob’s torn between the pleasure of his own desires, which Paul draws from him so easily with knowledge accumulated over years, and pleasing Emma’s envy by not taking pleasure in what Paul’s doing to him. 

Paul cups a hand under Jacob’s chin, fingers lightly holding his neck, and gets him to turn his head around so he can kiss him. Jacob’s eyes are closed, but Paul watches Emma as he slips his tongue into Jacob’s mouth and smiles when she slides her hand into her wet panties to touch herself. Jacob’s got Emma all wrong.

Jacob whimpers as his orgasm builds and his whole body shakes. Paul runs his tongue up the side of his neck and sets his teeth in his skin just below his ear, panting as Jacob’s ass tightens around his cock and squeezes when he tenses. Before he can come, Emma gets on her stomach on the bed and puts her mouth over Jacob’s dick. Paul laughs softly into the side of Jacob’s neck when Jacob makes a startled, frantic sound of pleasure and stares down at Emma with his eyes wide. To give her a little time, Paul slows until he’s barely moving, withdrawing only a little from Jacob’s ass before he thrusts back, pushing his hips against him. On the very edge of orgasm, Jacob moans in frustration and tries to move faster, force Paul to finish it, but Paul won’t. He wraps his arms around Jacob’s waist and holds him still while Emma sucks his cock. 

“Emma, he’s going to,” Paul tells her when he knows Jacob’s done for. 

She moves so Jacob won’t come in her mouth and she’s almost too slow. She nearly takes it in the eyes. As it is, when Jacob comes, he screams and it shoots from him and hits her cheek and the side of her neck. 

Emma looks surprised and a little disgusted for a moment, then her eyes lock with Paul’s and she laughs as she wipes it off. 

Paul laughs, too. Then he shoves Jacob down on the bed and fucks him hard and fast until he comes. He’s not wearing a condom, they didn’t think of it or care, and when Paul comes inside him, Jacob jerks and pushes back against him. Paul bites his shoulder to make him be still and doesn’t pull out of him until he’s ready to. 

When he’s finally done with Jacob, Paul rolls onto his back on the bed and lays there, catching his breath. Emma moves up against his side and leans over to kiss him and Paul opens his mouth under her prodding tongue to kiss her back without opening his eyes. 

He doesn’t wonder at her behavior much. She’s a predator like him; she can’t help being what she is. Jacob’s prey; he can’t help that, either. Emma can tell herself that she loves Jacob and maybe she even does some, but she’ll still eat him in the end. They don’t like each other very much, but Paul’s more Emma’s kind than Jacob will ever be. They’re the same, she and him. Paul doesn’t mind kissing her and touching her. She’s cute and he got what he wanted from Jacob anyway. Jacob is _his_ and they all know it now. Paul’s done with him. 

“Paul?” 

Paul cracks an eye open and looks at Emma inquiringly. 

“You’ve done that before,” Emma says. 

She’s smiling a little so Paul doesn’t sense a trap in the question. “Yeah,” he says. “He likes it better on his back, though.”

Emma grins and shakes her damp hair back. She’s propped up on Paul’s chest and glances over at Jacob beside them. He hasn’t moved. “He looks dead,” she whispers, and laughs. 

Paul smiles and turns his head to look at Jacob. He’s laying on his stomach, his arms folded under his head, sleeping. “Nah. He’ll wake up in a few hours and start freaking out,” he says. He strokes a hand through Emma’s hair and cups the back of her neck, bringing her down to kiss her. “Don’t worry. He can’t help it.”

Emma moves down on the bed and presses her lips to his chest, kissing down to his stomach. “Are you tired now?” she asks. 

Paul chuckles and rolls his eyes down to watch her. “No. Did you have something in mind?”

Emma holds up a condom in a wrapper and waves it at him. “I want a turn.”

Paul takes the condom from her and rips the wrapper open with his teeth. 

He gives her a turn. He’s happy to, really. Emma’s a strong equal to Paul, or very close to it, and sex with her turns out to be more like sex, like mating, less like masturbation as it sometimes feels with Jacob. She’s little, she probably only weighs half as much as Jacob, but she’s fierce and powerful. She wants and takes, she doesn’t just let Paul have his way with her body. She is shameless. Paul enjoys that about Emma and shows his appreciation by making her come until she can’t stand it anymore and makes him stop.

They go to sleep with Jacob nestled between them. Jacob sleeps on, undisturbed. He’s safe again, he’s forgiven. 

In the middle of the night, Paul wakes up when Jacob turns toward him and lays his head on his shoulder. He thinks Jacob’s still sleeping until Jacob starts kissing his neck. Paul turns his head to look at him and he can’t see him well in the dark, but he can see well enough to see Jacob’s eyes are open and on him. 

“What are you doing?” Paul asks him.

“I… you know,” Jacob says. The question makes him uncomfortable. 

Paul cups his jaw in one hand and Jacob tilts his head so he can kiss him. The discomfort goes away the moment Jacob’s not expected to articulate what he wants or what they’re doing. He doesn’t have to acknowledge it, he can just fall into the same old patterns with Paul, let him lead him where he wants him to go. That’s where he’s most at ease. 

It’s sad. It really is. Tragic, even. Jacob can’t help it any more than Paul can help the hands that creep up to circle Jacob’s throat. He remembers a fable he once heard or read somewhere. A turtle gives a ride across the water to a scorpion who promises not to sting it. It might have been a frog, but he’s pretty sure it was a turtle. In the middle of the water, where it’s deepest, the scorpion stings the turtle and when it asks him why it would do that when it means both creatures will die, the scorpion tells the turtle that it can’t help what’s in it’s nature. That’s Paul and Jacob straight across the board. Paul’s attracted to that yielding something in Jacob because he wants to push his fingers right into it and out the other side. Jacob can’t help the way he submits and Paul can’t help it that his submission just makes him want tear Jacob apart. 

On the bed beside them, Emma mutters in her sleep and turns her back to them. 

Paul crawls over Jacob and lays on top of him, pressing him down into the mattress as he kisses him. Jacob moans into his mouth and Paul makes a pleased sound of encouragement. He brings his hands back up to Jacob’s throat and pets up his neck into his hair. Jacob squirms under him and licks over Paul’s tongue, unconcerned with where his hands are. He’s felt them around his throat many times before. 

Even when Paul starts to squeeze, Jacob doesn’t struggle until he’s squeezing too tight and Jacob can’t breathe. Even then, he only resists a little so Paul will understand that it’s too much and slack off again. Which is so like Jacob. He doesn’t even see the danger. He doesn’t expect it. He’s just like a little fish, like Paul told Megan, one of those little fish that swim with the sharks and clean up after them. He goes on not believing that the shark has turned on him until it’s too late to even fight back because now he’s just too weak to struggle. 

Jacob watches Paul with his eyes wide and panicked. There’s a question there, too. _Why?_ But Paul thinks Jacob really ought to know, so he doesn’t tell him. 

Emma reaches back and pushes at Paul’s thigh. “Come on, you guys,” she mutters. “Can’t you wait until tomorrow?”

“Sorry, Emma,” Paul says softly. “I’m almost done.”

He’s panting as he holds Jacob down and squeezes his throat hard enough to cut off his air. Jacob’s writhing and trying to buck beneath him, but Paul’s strong. A lot stronger than Jacob. He holds him down and pushes him down into the mattress.

“Well, hurry up,” Emma says. She huffs out an annoyed breath and shoves at her pillow.

Emma thinks Paul’s fucking him again and the idea makes Paul laugh a little. Strangling him is as close to the same thing as Paul can imagine being. It’s just as much fun, he gets nearly the same amount of pleasure from it, and the thrill is sharper, more intense. The only real difference is, once he’s finished, he can’t do it again. 

Which is alright. Paul’s been getting tired of Jacob ever since they nabbed Sarah and moved to the farmhouse. Tired of all the strain it causes with Emma, tired of having it thrown up in his face that Jacob would choose to please Emma first and Paul only if she were not there, tired of all the demands he tries to make on Paul’s emotions and morality, tired of everything being so _messy_ , and tired as fuck of taking care of him because he can’t fend for himself. Which isn’t why he kills him, not really. He kills him because he’s wanted to kill him for a long time. 

Jacob belongs to him and Paul is incredibly possessive, but he just doesn’t want to play with him anymore. 

And he does like it. He likes the thunderous way Jacob’s pulse beats in his hands. He likes the way Jacob’s mouth falls open, trying to breathe when there’s no way. There’s just no way. He loves the way Jacob’s body shudders and shakes under him. He loves the way the life drains out of him like water through a sieve. It takes a lot longer to kill somebody with your bare hands around their throat than most people think. Movies don’t ever have the time to do it justice. If Paul were someone else, he would have ample time to realize what he’s doing and change his mind. He’s not anyone else though, and choking the life out of Jacob, with Emma oblivious right beside them, is better than sex.

When Jacob finally stops thrashing, Paul holds on for a few minutes longer just to be absolutely sure. He’s already sure, but he has to be _sure_.

Emma shifts on the bed and sighs. She’s decided that they’re done and she’s going to try going back to sleep again. 

Paul smiles and leans over to press a kiss to her shoulder. “Goodnight, Emma.”

She laughs a little, amused and sleepy. “Goodnight, Paul.”

Paul rolls off of Jacob and lays there, listening to the quiet. Listening to Emma’s even breathing as she falls asleep again. He could lay there and go back to sleep himself, but he’s hungry. He leaves Jacob in the bed with Emma and goes downstairs to the kitchen. 

He makes a sandwich, ham and cheese on toast, and eats it while he goes into the living room to turn on the TV. It’s the news when he turns it on and they’re talking about something to do with Maggie. Maggie tried to kill Ryan Hardy and ended up dead, apparently. 

Paul frowns. That’s too bad. 

He sits down on the sofa and changes the channel until he finds one playing cartoons 24/7. The smurfs are running from Gargamel and his evil cat through the animated forest. Paul sits back to watch it and eats his sandwich. 

Megan’s still downstairs in the basement and Paul thinks about that. The light is probably on now because Jacob would have gone down there to check before he went to find Emma and apologize. Jacob being Jacob, he would have left the light on for Megan. Small mercies and all that. Jacob being dead certainly simplifies the problem of Megan. Paul could even go down there after he finishes his sandwich, during a commercial break, and take care of it now. No fuss. 

He shrugs and decides to leave it alone. Let Emma take care of it in the morning after she wakes up and finds Jacob. She’s bound to be upset about that. Killing Megan will make her feel better.

**XXX**


End file.
